Under twenty pieces a month, hire someone

Our pricing page says that under twenty pieces a month you should probably hire someone. People are surprised an agency would say that, so here is the arithmetic, using the same numbers as the comparison table.

One good in-house video person costs about £47,500 a year once employer costs are added to a £38,000 salary. Kit adds £8,000 to £14,000 in the first year. Realistically they make twelve to twenty finished pieces a month, alongside everything else a small marketing team asks of them.

At fifteen pieces a month that is about £325 a piece in the first year and £264 after. Fifteen studio pieces from us at £180 is £2,700 a month, or £32,400 a year. On cost per piece we are cheaper by about £15,000 a year, and we would be lying if we said otherwise.

The case for hiring is what the other £15,000 buys. At fifteen pieces a month, an in-house person has a quarter of their time left over. They spend it on the things we cannot do from Manchester: a same day reaction to something in the news, stills for the product page, sitting in the meeting where the idea starts and knowing the product without a brief.

Above twenty a month that spare quarter is gone. One person is at capacity, the next step is a second hire, and a second hire is where the arithmetic swings hard towards us. Forty pieces from us is £5,600 a month; two people cost about £7,900 a month before anyone buys a lens.

So the honest advice is in two parts. Under twenty, hire someone good and call us for the months with a launch in them. Over twenty, or if the person you hired is drowning, that is what the packages are for.